


What...the Devil?

by skiron



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiron/pseuds/skiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a cryptic-as-usual conversation with Cas, the Winchesters head west to a little town called Sunnydale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set around the first half of Season 5 of Supernatural / after an alternate Season 7 of Buffy where closing the Hellmouth didn't destroy the town...you'll also notice later on that some characters who should be dead according to canon...aren't. But all that in good time.

“How’s the translation going there, Sammy?” Dean sticks his head out of the motel bathroom, a toothbrush in one hand. 

“Not too well, actually,” his brother replies, bent over his laptop screen. “But there’s an occult shop in town that could maybe help…want to go check it out?” 

Dean, now brushing his teeth, merely shrugs and nods. Sam closes the laptop, picking up the three-inch thick book beside it, which bears a call number sticker from Sunnydale’s library. He still can’t get over that they found this book here of all places, some nothing town in the middle of southern California. Well, a nothing town with more than its fair share of ‘natural’ disasters, but a nothing town nonetheless.

\---

The bell above the door rings around noon, just as Willow is thinking longingly of a lunch break. The morning had been slow, slower than usual, and the shop empty enough that mostly all she did was think of where she could get a sandwich once Anya finally came to relieve her. She looks up from the register to see two men entering the shop, both youngish, both white, both wearing an inordinate amount of layers for September in Sunnydale, but there the similarity ends. One of them is so tall his shaggy head almost hits the door closer as he comes in; the other has only a handful of inches on Willow, with his hair clean-cut and eyes so green she can see them from across the room. Not that she’s looking. 

“Hi, welcome to the Magic Box,” she says, grateful for a distraction from her stomach. 

“Hi,” says the one in front, and the one behind him nods pleasantly. “We were hoping you could help us out with a book. It’s uh…” He looks behind him, and the taller one takes over.

“It’s in some language we’ve never seen, actually.” He pulls an old book out of somewhere in his outermost jacket and approaches the counter. “It…kind of looks like old Enochian? Only we have a…friend who’s an expert in that and he can’t make head or tails of it. I’m Sam, by the way. And that’s my brother, Dean.”

“Willow,” she answers, pointing to the nameplate that’s in front of her on the counter. “And I can probably help you out. We like languages around here.” She smiles and takes the book, looking at the passage they’ve marked with a post-it. It doesn’t look like any of the usual spell languages. _So let’s try the unusual ones_ , she thinks, turning her back to scan the titles behind the counter. Dean’s voice makes her turn around again.

“You’re a witch? She’s a _witch_? You brought me to a _witch_ for help?” He’s staring at the nameplate she had indicated, which has, besides her name, both of her titles: ‘assistant manager’ and ‘witch.’ They had only added the second one a few weeks ago, when Anya had decided it made her seem more knowledgeable, which meant more inquiring customers and more sales. Giles and Willow had known better than to argue. Dean turns to look at Sam for confirmation of this apparently astounding fact, but his brother just shrugs.

“Hey, I didn’t know who worked here,” he says, spreading his hands out wide. 

“Guys, I’m right here, you know.” The girl behind the counter is maybe twenty-five at most, which is another point against her in Dean’s book. What’s some girl going to be able to do that he and Sammy can’t? And what’s more, how does Sam expect them to get any help from a witch of all things? That book they got from this weird-ass town’s library doesn’t look like anything they’ve seen before; how can someone who _hasn’t_ been traveling around fighting the supernatural since they could lift a gun have any clue? 

“Sorry,” Sam is saying now, with a sort of apology shrug. “Dean’s…not very fond of witches.”

“Do you think we all ride around on broomsticks with pointy hats and warts on our noses? Because I have had enough of that stereotype for a lifetime, thanks.” Willow doesn’t sound genuinely upset, just a little annoyed.

“No, he…” Sam takes a breath, as if deciding how best to play his brother’s issues.

“It’s more the bodily fluids and the dead things and the spitting,” Dean says flatly, with an ironic smile. “I’m not exactly the biggest fan of…alternative methods.”

“Well I don’t know what witches you’ve been hanging out with, but they can’t have been very good. If you do it right, there’s a shockingly small amount of bodily fluids involved.” As she speaks, Willow is pulling various books off the shelf behind the counter, checking the titles and laying them out on the glass case in front of her. So she misses the look that passes between the boys – Dean’s schoolboy smirk and Sam’s cautioning eyebrow furrow. “Besides,” the girl continues, opening some of the books to scan tables of contents and laying them out in layers, “You don’t seem to mind ‘alternative methods’ judging by the fact that you’ve got at least one gun under all that. It won’t do you much good here; sorry.” She indicates Dean’s jacket, under which he’s wearing a t-shirt and a cotton number in green and black plaid. And before he can recover from the knowledge that not only does she know he’s armed but she doesn’t seem to be intimidated by it in the least, she’s talking again. “We’ve got quite a few different possibilities here…mostly languages used in early fifth-century nature cults.”

“Wait what did you mean before?” Dean cuts in, knowing that once he starts talking research Sammy will hardly let him get a word in edgewise. “When you said my gun won’t do me much good, I mean.”

“Guns don’t work in the Magic Box,” Willow says with a shrug. “I worked that out a couple of years ago after we had some trouble. I don't like them. Here, take a look at this one first,” she finishes, looking at Sam. She taps the book on top of the pile with one finger, and puts the one they’ve brought over next to it. “It looks similar to me, but I’m not really an expert. I do more in the way of spells than ancient supplications.” 

“But how do you know it’s a supplication?” Sam asks, looking genuinely interested. Dean sighs. Of course this girl would speak Sam’s language, long words making things more complicated than they need to be.

“A prayer you mean, right?” he puts in, trying to get them back to speaking like normal people. 

“Yeah,” Willow says, furrowing her eyebrows at him. “And it’s pretty easy to tell. With anything as old as this, the names will be in a few key places – here look at the capitalization.” 

“Huh, well that makes our job way easier.” Sam looks over at his brother. “Even without the translation, we still know we’ve got what…three days?”

“Sorry,” Willow says, “what do you mean three days? Three days until what?”

“Uh, nothing,” says Dean, with a wink. “Don’t you worry your witchy little head about it.”

“Yeah, we’ve got it covered. But if you could finish out the translation for us, that would be really helpful,” Sam says. “I don’t suppose you _do_ have an expert?”

“Well, we’ve got a librarian who’s somewhat obsessed with ancient linguistics, which is as close as you can get I think.” Willow is still confused, but clearly these guys aren’t going to give her any more information. Still, if something is brewing in Sunnydale, clearly Giles or Buffy should know about it, that is if they don’t already. “So yeah I can hold onto this. Why don’t you come in tomorrow and we’ll see what we’ve got? That is, if you’re okay with that.” 

Dean looks like he’s about to object to this arrangement, but Sam stops him. “Yeah, sure,” he says, turning his brother around by the arm. “Tomorrow, then.” And they step out the door onto the sidewalk, leaving Willow slightly less bored but just as hungry as she had been. _If only they’d brought a sandwich_ , she thinks. _And where the hell is Anya?_

\---

“Dude, are you serious?!” Dean bursts out once they’re out of sight of the magic shop, walking back to where the impala is parked. “We’re trusting a witch with that book? Sam, you know what Cas said – there’s stuff in there that can _open a door to hell_.”

“Dean, you have got to get over this whole thing you have against witches,” Sam says, exasperated. “What possible motivation could she have for opening a hellmouth? Besides, she seems trustworthy enough. She works with a librarian.” He says this last as if it excuses anyone of their faults. 

“Sam, someone is planning to use that book to wreak all kinds of havoc. And if anyone would want some evil shit to go down wouldn’t it be the town’s resident witch?” 

“Stop being so dramatic; she didn’t seem evil to me.”

“Well excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. Or are you forgetting the whole sleeping-with-a-demon thing that ended with you hopped up on demon blood and brought back Satan?” 

“Dean, that’s not fair.” Sam sighs. “That book’s been in the library for years; don’t you think if someone from around here were going to use it for…nefarious purposes that they would have found it already? Cas probably meant someone from out of town was going to try to come and take it.” Sam opens the passenger side door and gets into the car. His brother only shrugs, getting into the driver’s seat.

“This is totally gonna bite us in the ass,” Dean mutters as he starts the car. He turns to Sam and adds, “if we get back there tomorrow and she’s run off with that book, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean meet some more of Sunnydale's resident Scoobies; Willow gets them a step closer to a translation.

When Sam enters the Magic Box the next day, accompanied by a surlier-than-usual Dean, there’s no sign of Willow. Instead, a younger girl stands behind the counter. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, with long straight brown hair and a friendly smile. 

“Hello, welcome to the Magic Box,” she says cheerily. “My name’s Dawn I’ll be your guide to the occult today. What can I do you for?” 

“You uh…work here?” Sam asks slowly, wondering if maybe she’s older than she looks.

“Well not technically, I’m more…filling in, while Willow gets some stuff done.” 

“What kind of stuff?” Dean asks suspiciously. 

“None-of-your-business stuff,” Dawn says, raising her eyebrows. “Do you need something or are you just here to snoop on Willow? She’s taken, you know.”

“Taken?” Sam asks, raising one eyebrow slightly. 

“She’s got a girlfriend, I mean. Besides, you’re not her type,” she says, nodding toward Dean. “Not mine either. You on the other hand…” she trails off looking up – way up – at Sam. 

“Dawn, stop harassing the customers,” a voice says, coming from a door further back in the shop. “You’re just supposed to be minding the till.” 

“It doesn’t need much ‘minding,’ Giles,” Dawn calls back, rolling her eyes. “It’s an inanimate object.” 

“Be that as it may…” the voice trails off.

“Who’s the Brit?” Dean asks. Sam moves away to look around at the Magic Box’s wares. He was so focused on the book yesterday that he hadn’t noticed all it had to offer, and is now examining a shelf of jagged-looking multicolored crystals. 

“Those are for magic amplification only,” Dawn says, seeing where Sam is looking. “And I’m pretty sure you’re not a witch.” To Dean, she adds, “That was Giles; he owns this place. And works with my sister.”

“So you’re…Willow’s sister?” Dean asks. _Just as long as the witchiness doesn’t run in the family_ , he adds silently. But the girl shakes her head.

“Buffy’s,” she says, without any elaboration. And before Dean can ask who the hell _that_ is and just how many people around here are part of this…whatever it is, the door in the back of the shop opens and a man walks out. His hair is a graying brown, cut short over a high forehead. Though he looks to be only in his mid-forties, he has an air of tiredness about him that suggests he might be older. He’s holding a pair of glasses in his hands, polishing the lenses.

“Ah, you must be the Winchesters,” he says, confirming that he is the owner of the voice that yelled at Dawn. He replaces the glasses on his face and looks over both brothers. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m Sam and that’s Dean, but…how did you know that?” Sam asks, turning away from a  
shelf full of differently-sized clear orbs. He is pretty sure they didn’t mention their last name yesterday.

“I, ah, have my sources,” says Giles. “The Watchers’ Council has been monitoring you two rather closely. Am I to understand you are what finally released Lucifer?” 

“Lucifer?” says a new voice, and Dean and Sam notice for the first time that Giles isn’t the only one who has entered the room. Behind him is a petite blond girl, dressed casually in jeans and a black t-shirt. Dean’s overall impression of her is ‘small,’ but she holds herself like she knows how to use whatever bit of muscle mass she has. _Hot_ , he thinks to himself. _Hot, but stubborn. And knowing this crazy place probably a witch._

“Er…yes,” Sam says slowly, looking from Giles to the blonde and back again. “It was totally unintentional –”

“Well obviously,” says Giles, waving a hand as if to brush away Sam’s excuses. “What’s much more important is why you are here, when our reports have Lucifer in Ohio.” 

“We, uh, a friend of ours wanted us to take care of something – ” Dean starts, but the girl behind Giles steps up and interrupts him.

“I’m sorry, but did you say these guys released Lucifer? As in _Satan_?” she directs her question to Giles but her eyes don’t leave the Winchesters. 

“Actually, Lucifer and Satan are often conflated but –” Sam begins, but his brother cuts him off.

“No one cares, Sammy. Yes, we accidentally got things rolling on this whole Apocalypse thing, but we’re trying to stop it so if you would just let us do our job—”

“How do you _accidentally_ start the Apocaly—” says Dawn, but she stops at an eyebrow raise from Giles. 

“No. Definitely no,” says the blond girl. “If you guys already screwed up I’m not letting you run around my town and make a mess of things.”

“ _Your_ town? Who the hell are you then?” Dean asks, his temper rising. It’s alright for the librarian type; he’s clearly been in the monster-fighting business for awhile if he’s already heard of them, but this chick is starting to really get on his nerves.

“I’m the slayer,” the girl says simply, shrugging off Dean’s angry outburst.

“What?” Dean asks shortly. 

“Slay-er,” she says slowly. “As in, the chosen one? Vamp-killing, Apocalypse-averting type? Though apparently you’re making my life harder on that count. You can call me Buffy.” She finishes with a sarcastic smile. 

Dean is about to say “What” again, when Sam holds up a hand to cut him off. 

“I’ve actually read about this,” he says to his brother, ignoring the others. 

“Of course you have,” Dean mutters, but Sam isn’t about to be deterred by this lack of enthusiasm. 

“I thought it was just a legend, you know, one girl chosen to defend the world against the supernatural I mean it doesn’t make much sense – one against all the creatures out there? But it’s true this place has had more than its fair share of strange occurrences, and it’s also true that they stopped –”

“—six months ago,” says Giles. “That is when Buffy closed the Hellmouth.” 

“You closed a gate to Hell?” Dean asks, impressed despite himself. 

“With a lot of help,” Dawn says, before Buffy can answer. 

“Still, that’s…” Dean trails off.

“Impressive,” Sam puts in. “He means to say it’s impressive.”

There is silence for a few moments. Just when Sam is getting uncomfortable enough to say something, the bell above the door of the shop rings, and Willow enters, her auburn pixie cut bouncing as she rushes in.

“Giles, you won’t believe what I found,” she says excitedly, slinging a large backpack off so it hits the ground with a thump. She kneels quickly beside it and pulls out two books. One of them Sam recognizes as the library book they brought in yesterday, but the other one he’s never seen before – and it’s one that he doesn’t think he’d forget. This book makes the one from yesterday look fresh off the presses – the cover looks like it’s crumbling away and if it had a title at some point, Sam can’t even tell what language it’s in, since the cover only has a few off-color smudges. The pages are so yellowed as to be almost brown, but for all its general ancient crustiness, Willow is holding it with a reverence usually associated with devout Protestants and their family Bibles. 

“Willow, I appreciate books more than most people but even I can’t glean any information from one that stays across the room from me,” Giles says drily, and Willow seems to come to herself.

“Sorry,” she says, ducking her head. She stands up and looks around the room, taking in the rest of her audience for the first time. “Oh, I guess I’m late to the party.” 

“Are you going to tell us what that book is or just sit there looking pretty?” Dawn asks.

“Right, okay,” Willow starts, smiling at her audience. “So, I figured since Sam already got the first book from the public library there wasn’t much point in starting there, so I started here – we’ve got quite a few older books on the occult here for research besides the ones we have out front,” she adds, mostly to Sam.

“And you didn’t want to tell us this yesterday?” Dean growls. His brother raises his eyebrows at him, but doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Willow says, looking a little uncomfortable.

“You don’t exactly give off a good listener vibe there, sunshine.” says Buffy, rolling her eyes. “Can’t you just let her finish?” And to Sam’s surprise, Dean shuts up.

“Anyway, so one of our books references _this_ one, and I remembered that Giles had a bunch of the older books from the school library stored back in his house, and that we moved most of them to our place last summer when his basement flooded and – well, long story short the bit you guys found _is_ Enochian.” Willow pauses, nodding toward Sam and Dean, before going over to the round table in the middle of the shop. “It's just not any alphabet we've seen before. Basically we’re lucky that Giles’s collection of 13th-century books is much more extensive than most.”

“He’s a bit of a freak with the book-collecting, you mean,” Dawn pipes up, coming around from the register to join the others, all of whom have drifted over to the table. 

“Well, yeah,” says Willow, grinning at the younger girl. “So the alphabet it uses – it’s not actually an alphabet, it’s a syllabary, and it’s one that was used by the cult of Sakar as far back as the fourth century B.C.E. – of course it wasn’t written down in anything like book form until the 13th century, which is where this guy comes in.” She taps the cover of the book; Giles reaches out a concerned hand as if he thinks it will crumble away with the bit of pressure she’s exerting. “Relax, Giles,” the witch says, smiling over her shoulder at him, “I’ve spelled it against any further wear and tear – it’ll still break down over time, but _slowly_.” Dean grunts at hearing this, scowling at the floor. Sam, looking across the table at the rest of the Sunnydale crowd, sees Buffy frown in Willow’s direction.

“Isn’t that kind of against the rules?” the blonde begins. “I thought you were going to cut back on the personal gain stuff.”

“It’s not personal gain,” says Willow with a shrug, “it’s necessary. This was Tara-approved, okay?”

“Okay,” Buffy says, looking somewhat reassured. Dean finally speaks.

“Is that all you, uh, spelled it for?” he asks, his tone more accusatory than Sam thinks is entirely necessary. “No fun revenge bits if other people try to read it, no hex bags drifting around?” Willow looks taken aback.

“Please. I haven’t made a hex bag since some creepy sleazeball wouldn’t stop hitting on me at The Bronze,” she says, twisting her mouth in irritation. “He was all ‘hey baby what’s your sign?’ and I was like ‘Not interested.’ And then he wouldn’t shut up, so I was like ‘I’m taken.’ And then he was like ‘you should be takin’ me’ and, well, he 'ended up' with a pounding three-day headache that’ll come back any time he doesn’t take no for an answer.” She hums a bit to herself, turning the pages of the eight-hundred-year-old book in front of her, as if it’s perfectly normal to hex people who don’t know the meaning of boundaries.

“Shit,” Dean says, “remind me not to get on your bad side.” He’s impressed, despite himself; maybe this witch girl isn’t so bad after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Buffy, bored with the translation, have a bit of a discussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even have an excuse. It's been ages; here it is.

Willow, Sam, and Giles, spend the rest of the morning crowded around one side of the table in the Magic Box, working out the proper translation of the symbols in front of them. Dean, bored after a few minutes of debate over whether a particular symbol is meant to represent ‘veh’ or ‘gal,’ walks out of the shop to find somewhere to call Cas for an update. He’s not too surprised to find Buffy leaning against the wall of the shop, though the knife she’s playing with gives him pause.

“You’re not afraid you’re gonna freak out customers, sitting out here and being all menacing?” he asks, jerking his head at the knife, which Buffy is casually flipping in circles, catching it by the handle each time it comes down. The girl shrugs, returning the blade to a sheath around her ankle. 

“Most of the people who come to the Magic Box know me, at least by reputation,” she says. “And if they don’t, well, I don’t know that anyone who needs something from here should be put off by a little blond girl with a knife. You get sick of the research geeks?”

“Yeah, that whole painstaking transliteration bit is more Sam’s thing,” he shrugs, debating taking off his jacket. California is _hot_ in September. He pushes his sleeves up above his elbows. “But if they can get it done by the end of the day, we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Oh, right, you’ll take off to…where was it? Ohio?” Dean looks up sharply at this.

“No – we’ll be off to catch whatever son of a bitch is planning to raise hell. Literally.”

“Whoa there hunter boy,” Buffy begins, stepping away from the wall and facing him squarely. There’s a stubborn set to her jaw that Dean doesn’t like very much. “Sorry if I gave you the wrong idea before, but we’ll take care of whatever hellish hijinks are going on here – I’ve been protecting this town for a long time; I wasn’t planning on stopping just because two pretty boys in a fancy car showed up with an old book.” 

“There it is again, that whole ‘my town’ thing; I don’t see your name on it anywhere.” Dean can’t imagine being that attached to a place – especially some cookie-cutter town like this one. He’d be a bit more curious about it if this chick wasn’t trying to snatch a job right from under his nose; it was irritating. Couldn’t she see the danger in having more people along than was absolutely necessary? That she or her friends could get themselves killed? “This is our case; it’s our _job._ We’ve been doing it for a long time, not just in one little corner – all over the country. And trust me: we’re pretty damn good at it.”

“Well excuse me for not getting in more road trips as a child,” Dean never thought he would actually feel threatened by a girl six inches shorter than him – especially one with a name like fucking _Buffy_ , but there’s something in her face that seems to say she would be happy to take his head off right then and there. He wonders briefly if Willow’s anti-gun spell extends to the sidewalk. 

“Excuse me if I’ve been taking care of this place since I was a teenager with no proper childhood. Excuse me if I’ve been so overrun with demons and vamps and other nasty things that I haven’t gotten around to seeing the fucking Grand Canyon.” She finally takes a breath and Dean has a moment to recover from this outburst before she continues in a somewhat calmer tone. “This is my _home._ I’ve destroyed more evil in a summer than you’ve probably ever seen. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you two come in here and screw things up just when I thought we were getting it under control.” She stops, glaring at him, and Dean gulps involuntarily. “Got it?”

“Listen,” he says, raising his hands in the universal gesture for ‘I come in peace,’ “we’re very good at what we do –” “Yeah, that’s how we ended up with Lucifer walking the earth. Because you two are so good at what you do.” Buffy raises her eyebrows at him, her arms folded across her chest.

“I told you, that was an accident,” Dean says tightly. “And one we’re trying to make right. I’ve been in this business a long time; I know how to do my job. Don’t stand there acting like you’ve never fucked up.” He glares at her, crossing his arms.

“How long?” It’s something in his face that makes her ask the question, though she can’t quite put her finger on it. Slowly, she uncrosses her arms.

“What?” he asks, now just confused.

“How long have you been in this business? And…what exactly is your business?” Buffy lets her arms fall to her sides and steps back; she’d gotten rather close to Dean during her angry speech. 

“I—” Dean starts, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s going to say. He doesn’t want to talk about John, doesn’t want to tell this arrogant little girl his life story. “I—” he tries again, but just at that moment the door to the Magic Box opens and Willow comes out, a beaded purse hanging from one shoulder. She rummages in it for a few seconds and pulls out a set of car keys before looking up.

“Oh hey, there you guys are,” she says. “I’m heading out to get us some lunch – you up for your usual, Buffy?”

“Yes, please, thanks Will,” says Buffy distractedly. She’s still looking at Dean, a bit too sharply for his comfort.

“I don’t know—” he starts, looking at Willow if only to have an excuse to break eye contact, but she cuts him off.

“Oh, don’t worry; your brother gave me an order.” she says waving his words away.

“Oh okay, uh, how’s the translation going?” He’s so grateful for the interruption to his conversation with Buffy that he doesn’t even mind changing the subject to something he’d had quite enough of hours ago.

“It’s slow,” Willow sighs. “Dawn dragged Giles away to help with her Latin homework so it’s just Sam and me now and neither of us knows enough Enochian to make any real sense of it – it’s like we’re trying to break a code without knowing how to spell any common words. So basically, it’s terribly frustrating, or as my linguistics professor would say, ‘a fun challenge!’”

“I’m sure it’s fun. And I’m even going to let you keep all that fun for yourself because I’m such a great friend.” Buffy smiles winningly; Willow gives her a small grin in return.

“I mean I do love it; we’re figuring out a whole new alphabet! It’s just such a headache right now and I needed to make a soup run because soup makes everything better.” She gives a solid nod and starts off down the block, humming to herself. As she disappears from view, it looks like Buffy is about to pick up where they left off, but Dean speaks first.

“Look, I get that you’re used to being in charge here. I get that. But maybe you can accept that other people exist who know their shit, okay? I sawed off my first shotgun when I was ten; I’m not new to this.” 

Buffy studies his face for a long minute, nods once. 

“Okay. But you’re not going off on your own to maverick together some solution. We’ll work together. All of us.” 

Dean hesitates for a moment then nods definitively. 

“Okay,” he says. “Together.” If things get too risky, he figures he and Sam can always break from the pack and fix things on their own. 

“Well if that’s settled,” Buffy starts, but she doesn’t go beyond that, looking at something over Dean’s shoulder. She smiles and lifts a hand to wave, and Dean turns around. There’s a girl around their age walking toward them; her dark honey-colored hair is tied up in a ponytail, revealing swishy silver swirls dangling from her earlobes. She has broad shoulders and round hips, and is dressed comfortably in a loose ankle-length skirt and a long-sleeved tee, both in shades of blue.

“Hey,” she says with a little wave, as she walks up to them. 

“Hey, Tara,” Buffy says, looking more relaxed than she has these past few minutes. “It’s good you’re here, actually – we could totally use you on this. This is Dean Winchester, by the way.” Buffy waves a hand impatiently at Dean, almost as if to dismiss his presence rather than introduce him.

“Hi,” Tara says glancing over at Dean with a warm smile, but her eyes slide off him more quickly than he’s used to and she turns back to Buffy. “Willow said something about code-breaking?” 

“Hey I’m not research girl,” Buffy says with a shrug, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the shop. “You’ll have to ask in there. Dean’s brother’s still working on it.” 

“Sure, okay, nice to meet you, Dean,” Tara says, with a slight nod at him before heading into the shop.

“Aren’t there any guys on this little team of yours?” He regrets it almost immediately, seeing Buffy’s eyebrows lower.

“Are there any women on yours?” Buffy counters sharply, all worries about Dean’s experience apparently shoved aside. 

“Well,” he coughs, trying to recover gracefully, “it’s really just Sam and me so—”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’ve got the whole dynamic duo that doesn’t take help from anyone thing going on.”

“It’s not like that – we have friends that help out…well one friend anyway. Though he’s hard to find sometimes...” He frowns down at the phone still in his hand; he really should call Cas. 

“There’s Xander, by the way,” Buffy explains. “And Spike, he helps out from time to time. I’d honestly never thought about it.”

“What kind of name is Spike?” Dean raises an eyebrow, momentarily distracted from his phone again. 

“You’ll have to ask him,” she says, grinning slightly too wickedly for comfort.


End file.
